Improved rail wat-car wheel



niiet ltereme een.

CLARENCE DELAFIELD, OF CASTL'ETON, AND FRANK G. JOHNSON, I

OF NORTHFIELD, NEW YORK. i

Leafs Patent No. 94,293, macitynet 31,' 1869.

IMPROVE!) RAILWAY-CAR WHEEL.

The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent and making part of the same.

To all whom 'it may concer-n Beit knownthat we, GLARECE DELAFIELD, ofGastleton, and FReNK G.JOHNSDN, of Northfield, in the county of Richmond, and Statie of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Oar-Wheels; and we do hereby declare that the following is a full,

clear, and exact description thereof, which will enable of car-wheels made of' inetal and wood, as hereinafter more vfully specified.

Figure 'l represents a section of onrfimproved wheel taken in the plane o tf its diameter, some of the wood portion being removed.l

Figure 2 represents a transverse section.

Similar letters'of reference indicate corresponding parts; Y Oar-wheels have been hitherto made of wood and metal under various arrangements, having for their objeetto combine the soft and yielding qualities of 'the wood with the qualities of strength and hardness possessed by the metal, to produce more easy-running cars with less wear upon the wheels and the rails.

lu all arrangements previously ,tried,.the wood portions .of the wheels have been hooped with iron or steel tires, which to a very great extent counteract thev usefulness of the wood portion, which is confined thereby., and not permitted to impartits full measure of usefulness.

Ve provide two metal disks, A. B, the one, A, being ot' sufliciently greater' diameter than the other for the excess to form the flange O, andeither one may have a central cone, D, through which the bore is made for the axle.

. Each disk is also provided with .an annular projection, E, on its inner face, the inner wall of which is inclined so that when pressed into the central wood portion F of the wheel by clamping'the two disks' against the said wobd portion, the latter will be drawn inward against the hub or cone D.

These annular projections are preferably arranged at unequal distances from the centre or periphery, so as not toweaken the wood, as would be the case if' placedopposite eachother.

`For this wood part F ofthe wheel, we prefer to employ tough but not very hard timber, such as yellow or North Carolina pine, and other similar woods, taking care to select straight vand even-grained timber, splitting it into narrow pieces, a, which we arrange in the.

wheel between the two flanges, with4 the grain in the radial lines, tapering them to iit the space snugly, and to rest with their inner ends against the hub D, while their outerends are flush with or slightly projecting v from the edge ofthe disk D. l

The whole being so arranged, is firmly clamped together by bolts G passing through the hub, where we prefer vto first` tighten the flanges up against the wood, to draw it by the projections E inward, and other bolts, H, designedly arranged' near the periphery, to 'clamp the wood part as compact as possible thereat, and especially to prevent any lateral spread-j ing ofthe wheel at kthe tread.

We have found by experience that wheels .constructed in this way, with a wood face or tread, taking the wear on the end of the grain, are capable of greater endurance than metal wheels with steel tires, and much less injurious to the rails. They also run very still and with less 'jarring to the cars, and do not become loose or weak from changes .under atmospheric influence.

Having. thus described our invention,

What we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

The disks A B, when provided with theprojections E, in combination with the wood strips F, as herein described for the purpose specified.

The above specification of our invention signed by us, this 20th day of March, 1869.

CLARENCE DELAFIELD. FRANK G. JOHNSON.

Witnesses:

FRANK BLooKLEr, ALEX. F. ROBERTS. 

